What counts as love?

I'm finding it difficult trying to gather the words associated to the feelings I felt after reading through the works of Asian American Poetry. There are so many traditions and cultural histories within these poems that reflect the cultures and traditions my own family, history and life as a woman (of color). Both Marisa de los Santos and Adrienne Su wrote poems about the trials girls must endure through their journeys of growing into women. The poems that really hit home were de los Santos' "Rite of Passage" and Su's "The English Canon" and "“Female Infanticide: A Guide for Mothers”.

I felt my spirits being weighed down as I read "Rite of Passage". I felt a strong sense of disdain, conflicting feelings of resentment for the child that was born because how could a woman love something that has the ability to steal your life and makes your life disposable compared to theirs? Regardless, the child is a part of you, something ushered into being because of your body, so you feel an unspoken attachment to the child and urge to love them. The lines that I loved the most out of this poem were:

“Holding you, I feel myself erased.

(To think erased is failure, to write it, betrayal.

But do I love you? While you sleep, I measure

an hour by your quick breaths, another

by your thin scalp’s pulse. What word is there

for this? In your absence, my arm bones grieve,

my breasts weep milk. What counts as love?)"

As an Asian woman, I have been taught that my child's life is more important than mine, bearing children is my purpose and bearing a son is my goal. I could see how the speaker feels erased in the presence of the child, especially if it were a boy. Now that the speaker had accomplished all she was meant to do, what else was she needed for? (Nothing.)

Su touches on this subject as well.

“Female Infanticide: A Guide for Mothers” doesn’t beat around the bush nor is it sensitive to its readers.

Su shows us another ugly side of culture that I’m very familiar with. Along with learning that my goal as woman is to be a mother and produce a son, I also learned the (lack of) worth of girls. Right off the bat, Su leads us down the most efficient ways to deal with the possibility of birthing a girl, not one of which is a happy ending fit for a princess.

In “The English Canon,” Su writes:

“The trouble is, I’ve spent my life

Getting over the lyrics

That taught me to brush my hair till it’s gleaming,

Stay slim, dress tastefully, and not speak of sex,

Death, violence, or the desire for any of them,

And to let men do the talking and warring.”

The one thing about this section that really stood out to me was the way Su used the word “lyrics” to describe the mannerisms the speaker was forced to pick up while growing up. Usually when I read something along these lines, it’s likened to something unpleasant or painful, like something “gets drilled into you,” or is “beat into you.” This, however, is so lovely. Lyrics are something we remember with such ease. There’s nothing taxing about the process of remembering lyrics and, sometimes, we remember lyrics to a song we hadn’t listened to in ten years and can’t even remember what we ate for breakfast three days ago.

The way the word “lyrics” is used is beautiful, because although we might remember the lyrics to a song, it might not be a song we like. At all. But we remember it nonetheless and trying to actively forget lyrics is next to impossible. 

Especially the lyrics of your history and culture.

When history, culture and poetry are combined, something beautiful is born. Something that you can't undo or try to erase. No matter what you are born into, it's all you've got and what you make of it is up to you. You could write a sad, angry, hateful song or one of praise and thanks for giving you the basis of the kind of person you wish to become.